


And the Rain Stopped

by ivyshort



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Gets a Hug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Aged-Up Character(s), By the end of it, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Mostly just background Chloe redemption, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24131428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyshort/pseuds/ivyshort
Summary: Marinette blinked, and Chat Noir was gone.In a move she would later label deeply unprofessional and look back upon with a hint of embarrassment, she took two steps forward, slugged her childhood idol with all her strength, and launched herself off the Arc after her partner as fast as her yo-yo would let her.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 31
Kudos: 543
Collections: Miraculous Ladybug and Cat/Chat Noir Reveal





	And the Rain Stopped

They cornered Hawkmoth on a Wednesday. 

It was raining.

Water came down from the heavens in sheets, threatening to drown Paris in a dizzying swirl, soaking the young heroes to the bone and washing blood and dirt into the canals of the city almost as quickly as it fell from its hosts. 

Hawkmoth had started to lash out more wildly in the past few weeks, just as final exams had started to rear their ugly heads. It had been deeply inconvenient - by some unfortunate stroke of luck, they attended the same university (a fact they’d accidentally stumbled into knowing about each other a year ago while venting to each other on patrol one evening). The masks covered the bags under their eyes, but there were plenty of other tells for Marinette. She knew Chat was just as exhausted as she was. His hair was even more unkempt than usual, and he wasn’t as quick on the puns as he usually was, taking a little too long to snap himself out of the daydreams.

She had expected more fanfare from the final showdown between their greatest enemy. A week long battle of wills, kwami fusions, armies - something more dramatic than just the three of them waiting for Hawkmoth’s time to run out. Alya, Nino, and Chloe had Mayura in the same position somewhere on the other side of Paris. It was really such a random set of circumstances that she couldn’t quite fathom how they’d all worked out this cleanly in the span of two hours as she was supposed to be finishing the final three looks of her fall collection.

But here, drenched by rain, standing on the top of the Arc de Triomphe, were only the three people that started it all.

The rain kept the tourists away and blanketed the city in an unnatural hush. 

“It’s the end of the road, Hawkmoth,” Marinette said quietly, clutching her yoyo tightly, willing her hands to stop shaking, “Hand over the brooch.”

She met Chat Noir’s eyes briefly, and he nodded, slinking around to the other side of the Arc. 

Hawkmoth’s final stand would be against the only two superheroes he’d ever cared about, and it would be over very soon.

His miraculous beeped for the fourth time. One minute. Hawkmoth looked around wildly, trying desperately to see a way out, an ally to sweep him away just in the nick of time like they always had before. 

Chat Noir raised his baton. 

Forty-five seconds. 

“My intentions have been nothing but honorable. If you two had simply handed over your miraculous l-” 

“Can it, Hawkmoth,” Chat Noir cut him off, venom rising in his voice, “Only one of us destroyed Paris once a week for five years.”

Twenty-three seconds.

They each took a step forward.

“You can hand it over, or we can take it. By force.” 

Marinette wasn’t sure she’d ever been this cold before, voice dripping with ice despite the warm June air. The barrage of akumas and amoks over the last two weeks had not been any more difficult than they’d been the last few years, but they had been so frequent that she was pretty sure she’d have to tell all her professors she was Ladybug to explain all her absences. Neither her nor Chat Noir had had a full night’s sleep in at least a month at this point, juggling classwork and superhero duties. 

Ten seconds.

Hawkmoth covered the brooch protectively, shoulders curled around it. 

Five seconds.

“No one’s saving you this time,” Chat Noir spat, glaring at the older man. 

Three. 

Two. 

One. 

A bright flash of light. 

Marinette’s breath caught in her throat. 

“My wife-” Gabriel Agreste started to say, trying desperately to make eye contact with Ladybug. 

She didn’t hear him. All she heard was the strangled sob from Chat Noir, who had suddenly gone as white as a ghost and trembling like a leaf in the wind. The rain pouring down his face in tiny rivers looked uncomfortably like tears. 

He opened his mouth again, but no sound came out.

“Kitty?” she whispered, taking a step toward him. Chat Noir knew Adrien, but she hadn’t thought they were every close. He seemed more annoyed with Adrien than anything, rolling his eyes at every billboard they swung by on patrol and snarking at the dozens of commercials that played in shop windows. 

_ Oh god, Adrien,  _ she thought with a pit in her stomach,  _ this was going to destroy him. _

Marinette blinked, and Chat Noir was gone.

In a move she would later label deeply unprofessional and look back upon with a hint of embarrassment, she took two steps forward, slugged her childhood idol with all her strength, and launched herself off the Arc after her partner as fast as her yo-yo would let her. 

She found him curled between the potted plants on the terrace above her parent’s bakery, knees drawn up to his chest, fingers clutching the drenched hair on the back of his head like it was the last thing he’d ever be able to touch. 

“This is one hell of a hiding place, Chaton,” she said gently as she touched down.

He mumbled his reply into his knees, almost too soft to hear, “‘s safe here.”

Marinette dropped to her knees in front of him and coaxed his hands out of his hair. She didn’t force his head up yet, knowing the deep, shaking shoulders, contenting herself with holding his hand and stroking his hair. The rain fell in sheets around them, coating the world in a damp misery that matched Chat Noir’s mood all too well.

“I’m sorry, Ladybug,” he whispered after a few minutes, breathing finally back under control, “I shouldn’t have left you there.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” she replied, moving her hand from his hair to his cheek, “There’ll be another day, when you’re ready.”

His breath caught in his throat again, and she watched him open and close his mouth, bottom lip trembling as he tried to formulate his reply.

“You won’t-”

They both jumped at the shrill, piercing ring that suddenly came to her yoyo. Half a second later, his staff also started sounding off, a cacophony of trills and chirps filling the air. Marinette grimaced and pulled her yoyo off her hip, keeping her hand carefully holding his as she picked up the call. 

“Ladybug!” 

Rena was breathless, ponytail askew, but there was an air of victory in her voice that made Marinette smile for just a breath.

“We got her. Peacock in hand. She’s in custody. We’re-” Rena stopped herself for a moment, glancing off the video call. Carapace came into view a second later, along with Queen Bee, “Mayura was Gabriel Agreste’s personal assistant, Nathalie.”

Chat froze and she noticed he’d started to tremble again. She squeezed his hand lightly, rubbing the back of his hand gently with her thumb. 

“We wanted to ask about Hawkmoth,” Queen Bee asked quietly, tucking her bangs behind her ear and pulling on her earlobe.

“Chat Noir and I…” Marinette started, trying to think as fast as she could, “Ran into some problems. We’re regrouping now.”

Rena leaned in, “Are you two okay?”

“Not yet, but we’ll get there,” Marinette took a deep breath and looked back up at Chat. He didn’t really move at all, but she knew him well enough to notice the tiny dip in his head. She turned back to her yoyo, “I’m sorry to say Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth, and he’s still at large.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence as Rena, Queen Bee, and Carapace looked at each other. Carapace swore quietly, and Marinette could have sworn she heard Chloe whisper ‘ _ -kick that motherfucker in his custom-sculpted nose”. _

“We’re going to go find Adrien,” Carapace said eventually, “He deserves to find out from friends and not some jackass’s Instagram story or something.”

Ladybug nodded, lips pressed together, “You can tell him who you are,” she murmured, “If it helps any.”

“Thanks, LB. Regroup in two hours at the usual spot?”

She nodded and hung up.

Chat Noir let out the strangest, most agonized laugh she’d ever heard in her life, fresh tears streaming down his face.

“GREAT!” he snapped, “Fan-fucking-tastic! I love it! What’s next, Gorilla was raising all the goddamn butterflies all these years too?! Jesus  _ Christ _ I’m going to be sick-”

She’d only ever heard Adrien refer to his bodyguard as Gorilla. 

Marinette felt her stomach crash through the floorboards as that old photo of Adrien photoshopped into a Chat Noir costume Alya had shoved in her face all through  _ College  _ flashed back up in her brain. She moved her hand back up to his hair. It was shorter than it had been when they were younger. She remembered when Adrien had gotten it cut. She remembered Chat Noir showing up to patrol the next day sporting an almost identical style, claiming he saw a new ad from  _ Gabriel  _ and got inspired.

Inspired. By the fashion line he sneered at every night. 

Only there hadn’t been any ads posted in the 36 hours between when Adrien got his hair cut and when Chat Noir showed up to patrol. Marinette hadn’t allowed herself to think anything of it.

There were a lot of things about Adrien and Chat Noir she’d never let herself think about. 

_ Overbearing father.  _

_ Absent mother. _

_ Feather allergy. _

“Kitty,” she ventured, voice barely a whisper as the thunder boomed above them, “They’re not going to find Adrien at his apartment, are they?”

_ Demanding family job. _

_ University major. _

Chat Noir shook his head, rain flowing down his cheeks in rivers and mixing with his tears, “No, my lady.”

_ His selflessness. _

“And his old room at the Agreste mansion is going to be empty too, isn’t it?”

_ His laughter. _

He nodded, lips pressed tightly together.

“Adrien won’t be at his favorite cafe on the  avenue de Malakoff, or the university library. They won’t be able to find him at all.”

_ His smile. _

She swallowed, throat dry, “Because he already knows who his father is.”

_ The fact that she was deeply, laughably, embarassingly in love with both of them. _

“Claws in, Plagg,” he whispered.

Plagg emerged from the ring much more slowly than usual, floating up to Adrien’s face and giving him a tender kiss on the forehead.

“Bad luck, little kitten,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Plagg turned back to Marinette.

“Third shelf in the fridge,” she whispered, giving him a wry smile. 

“Tikki coming along shortly?” Plagg asked.

She spared a look at Chat Noir, face buried in the crook of his free elbow, and shrugged.

Plagg nuzzled her cheek softly and sunk through the teak floorboards, leaving Marinette Dupain-Cheng alone with Adrien Agreste. 

Oh god, to have been sixteen and seen the boy sitting there on her old balcony as his transformation fell away. She couldn’t even deny the tiny flutter her heart gave now, at twenty-one, knowing the only two boys she had ever loved were one in the same. She’d been too busy to think about it for years. Content with what she had from both, unwilling to rock the boat. 

In another circumstance, she could have wept with joy. 

The rain kept coming down.

Was she crying now, too? She couldn’t even tell.

“I’m so sorry, Ladybug,” he tore his hand away from hers, curling himself deeper into the wall, “I should have known, I should have guessed, they were  _ right there  _ the whole time and I never-”

Marinette weighed the pros and cons of detransforming herself right then and there, dropping the mask and the spots and just letting herself be  _ Marinette _ . Maybe that would just make it worse. He had enough surprises for today. 

“Oh,  _ mon Minou, _ don’t say things like that. You loved them. You tried so, so hard to make them happy. You could never have known.”

He slipped his ring off his finger, turning it over a few times in his fingers. 

She reached for his hand again. He allowed her to take it, but his fingers were stiff. 

“Take the ring,” he croaked out, “To face my father. You can’t trust me, it’s okay, I understand.”

Her brow furrowed, and she scooted herself closer to him, her thigh resting against his as she cupped his cheek, “Now you’re just not talking sense, Kitty. There’s no one I trust more in the entire world, in or out of the mask.”

God, his eyes were so green. How had she had every photoshoot he’d ever done plastered up on the walls of her bedroom for years and never really noticed how green they were? How had she stared at him every night for patrol and been fooled into thinking that under the mask, they were anything but the deepest, most emerald green she’d ever seen?

“But-”

“Adrien,” she interrupted, resting her forehead against his, “I could never ask you to fight him. Complicated relationship or not, I know you love him. I could never force you to do that.”

He closed his eyes, as if bracing himself against a stiff wind.

“But I could never take your miraculous from you. I couldn’t have any other Chat Noir, not for a single battle. No one could ever substitute. If you need to sit out this next fight, that’s okay. You’ve done more than enough. But after we’re done with all this, Paris still needs Ladybug and Chat Noir, and I still need my partner.” 

Marinette took the moment of hesitation to close his fingers back around his ring. 

“You still want me as your partner?” he asked, voice so small, so deeply unlike her partner. “The others-” 

“They love you too, Kitty. I promise.”

Maybe she hadn’t really meant to say that  _ too,  _ but she couldn’t exactly say she regretted it. Another crack of thunder boomed overhead, making them both jump before she could read his face.

“Why don’t we get dried off?” she offered, giving his hand a squeeze, “As much as I love the melodrama of sitting here in the pouring rain, I think the novelty has worn off and now I’m just cold.”

He chuckled, but it was still hollow, “Your wish is my command, my lady.”

She rolled her eyes, trying to smile and return to some sort of normalcy, and pulled him towards the trapdoor.

“Ladybug, we can’t break into someone’s  _ house-”  _ he protested as she jimmied it open. Her mother had locked it again, but she’d gotten pretty good about slipping the latch  _ just so  _ when she needed to stop by after an attack without alerting her parents that she was on the complete opposite side of Paris that she was supposed to be on. 

“Don’t worry, Kitty,” she replied, flipping the door open with a triumphant  _ smack _ , “Ongoing invitation from the lord and lady of the house. I’m welcome any time, and they’re out of town visiting a relative this week.”

Maybe that invitation hadn’t been extended to Ladybug specifically, but her parents had certainly been trying to convince her to move back in with them since she’d started university. If the commute wasn’t an absolute nightmare, she would have considered it.

He didn’t look very convinced, but followed her down the ladder anyways, eyes trailing around her childhood bedroom. The posters were all long gone now, and most of the leftover things she hadn’t taken with her to her apartment were filed and organized in a way they’d never been when she lived there.

Marinette wrapped him gently with a fluffy pink towel and cupped his cheeks with her hands, leading him again, this time towards the couch in the corner.

“What do you need right now?” she asked quietly, cursing the growth spurt he’d had years ago that had made him tower over her and the growth spurt she’d never had that should have let her catch up.

He didn’t answer right away, but he did sit down. She’d consider it a success. 

“Just this,” Adrien said eventually, drawing the towel around himself tighter, “For a little while longer.”

He smiled in the way he did whenever a fan gushed about his modeling, or when Chloe latched onto his back, or when Lila weaseled her way into a photoshoot. It never reached his eyes. 

They fell into silence for a few minutes, air full of thick sadness but comfortable in the way only the space between the two of them could ever be.

“Adrien,” she steeled her nerves, not sure she wanted to know the answer to the question she was about to ask, “Why did you come here?”

“I didn’t think about it. I just… I just needed to be somewhere safe.”

He sat there a moment, holding his breath. She was holding hers too.

“My first thought was Marinette,” he said shakily, “I know she doesn’t live here anymore, but I spent a lot of time here. I was hoping luck might be on my side and she’d be helping her parents like she sometimes does or stopping by to grab something she didn’t bring to her apartment or something. I definitely wouldn’t have made it all the way to her apartment in the state I was in.”

He fiddled with the edge of the towel, whispering the next words, “LB, I’d really like her to know, if that’s okay. I need someone who knows me, who knows all of me, to know. I don’t know if I can get through this otherwise.”

“You’d think,” she said, tears back to pricking at the corners of her eyes again, “After all these years, I’d be better at saying no to you.”

She reached for his hand again, and he took it, lacing their fingers together like they’d been designed to, “Kitty, can you handle one more secret today?”

He swallowed and nodded, and she wonders if he’s already guessed. 

“Tikki, spots off,” she closes her eyes as she says it, feeling her wet suit melt back into the leggings and sweatshirt she’d been wearing as she’d started her evening (which was supposed to be very busy sewing her fall collection before the end of the world). Her ponytail dripped water down her now-dry back and sent chills down her spine.

With a start, Marinette remembered the sweatshirt she was wearing was actually Adrien’s, and she’d stolen it a few months ago when he’d accidentally spilled wine all over her shirt during game night and felt so guilty he immediately pulled it off and handed it to her before she even got it in the sink to soak. She cursed Gabriel Agreste again silently for his piss-poor timing. If she’d have  _ known  _ she was going to reveal her secret identity to her partner who also happened to be the owner of the goddamn hoodie she was wearing tonight, she would have dressed up a little. She certainly wouldn’t have chosen  _ his own goddamn hoodie to wear. _

He didn’t say anything.

She dared to open one eye.

He was crying again, staring at her with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.

“Oh no, Adrien, I’m so sorry, that was too much, I shouldn’t have pushed that on you, ohmygodwhatwasIthinking-”

“Oh, thank  _ god _ ,” he whispered, voice cracking on the last word, laughing and crying all at once and sweeping her into the tightest, most bone-crushing hug she’d ever received.

“I don’t know if I could have handled it if you were anyone else,” he murmured into her the crook of her neck, breath tickling her collarbone, “I really, really needed it to be you.”

“It’s me,  _ minou,  _ it’s me,” she said softly, combing her fingers through his dripping wet hair and resting her chin on his shoulder, “I’m not going anywhere. You and me against the world.”

“You and me against the world,” he repeated, and she heard the smile in his voice for the first time all night.

They sat there for a long time, Marinette drawing slow circles on his back, the last rays of evening light fading into a deep spring night. 

He pulled back eventually, cupping her face in his hands this time, and Marinette had to remind herself not to melt right then and there. His only family had been revealed as the supervillains terrorizing Paris a few hours ago. He needed a friend right now. 

“I’m so glad you’re you,” he said, resting his forehead against hers.

“Thank god. I was worried I was going to make your day even worse.” She tried not to think too hard about how close he was.

Adrien smiled, and her heart raced like it hadn’t beat in years. 

“Never, ‘Nette. You could never,” he replied, staring her down, green to blue, lips curled into a quiet smile, “And you gave me some courage to do something I’ve been too much of a coward to try for years.”

“Oh yeah, Kitty? And what is that?” she replied, trying to keep her breathing even. 

He leaned in and kissed her instead of replying, chaste and feather light, so quickly she didn’t even have time to return the gesture before he pulled away, fingers still cupped around her jawline. They lingered there for a moment before he started to pull them away too.

Was it possible to take flight? She was pretty sure she was floating right now. 

Marinette hooked her fingers behind his neck and jerked him back forward, pressing her lips on his more firmly, tilting her head for a better angle. He tasted like dark chocolate and salt.

Both of them were entirely out of practice - she’d only dated Luka for a few months in high school before it was obvious to all parties involved that it would never work, and Adrien’s relationship with Kagami had barely lasted two weeks. She hadn’t tried dating anyone after that - not when she had to sit behind one boy she was in love with all day and protect Paris with the other boy she was in love with all night. She couldn’t say for certain Adrien had never tried to date anyone else either, but she’d spent entirely too much time around him to miss anything about his love life.

_ But oh god,  _ she thought anyway, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and deepening the kiss,  _ This was perfect. _

They broke apart eventually, breathing hard. She was practically in his lap now, one of her legs draped over his hip to get the angle right.

“That sweatshirt looks familiar.” He was smirking a little now, spark back to dancing in his eyes.

She smirked right back, relishing the return to normalcy, “Got it off some poor schmuck I go to school with.”

“A girl like you has to have dozens of sweatshirts from guys like him.”

“Just one,” she breathed, going back in for another kiss, “I’ve had this deeply aggravating amount of feelings for him for a long time, and the only other boy I love only wears a leather catsuit.”

He hummed his approval, playing with one of the longer pieces of her bangs near her ears, “I can relate. I’ve been in love with this girl who kept my sweatshirt for years now, but I also could never stop thinking about this superhero I know who prances around Paris in red spandex like she owns the place.”

She giggled softly, stopping just short of pinching herself. 

“I told myself that after finals, or once Hawkmoth was taken care of, whichever came first, I’d finally be brave and ask you on a date,” he murmured, almost an afterthought, still smiling.

“Me? Or Ladybug?” she teased, leaning into his chest to listen to his heart beat, wondering if it was racing as fast as hers was. 

He snorted, “My plan was Marinette, but I figured my chances were pretty slim either way.”

“Doesn’t Nino tell you  _ anything?” _ she asked, turning her head back up to look him in the eye.

“Nino just broke into these inconsolable giggle fits any time I asked, it was really unhelpful,” he pouted.

“Well, Kitty, I’ll tell you right now, then. You didn’t have a chance. You had a certainty.”

He leaned in for another kiss.

The rain stopped.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Adrien's dealing with this whole "My Dad's an internationally feared supervillain who's been bent on destroying Paris since I was a pre-teen" thing remarkably well, but boy howdy is his therapist in for a surprise next week. Their session is just Adrien screaming at the top of his lungs for two hours.
> 
> (In case anyone was wondering, Marinette wearing his sweatshirt was absolutely why he finally made a goddamn move)


End file.
